Hidden Worthiness

by Susan Fanetti

  His own taste was much less cluttered and considerably more modern, but he liked this room. He saw her here.

  He took her to her bed and laid her on it. She pushed the comforter down to the foot and settled herself in the middle.

  He stood at the side of the bed and took his clothes off, laying each piece across the top of a small dresser she used as a nightstand. He took a condom from his wallet and set it on the neat pile of clothes.

  Arianna lay where she was, placid and passive, and watched him. When he was naked, she whispered, “Your body is beautiful.”

  That was a compliment he could accept. His body was scarred, too, from the attack that had changed his life and from other violences as well, but none of those scars were repellent or particularly unusual. He worked hard—harder every year he aged—to be fit and strong.

  “So is yours. Hands and knees.”

  She frowned. “What?”

  Earlier, she’d stopped him from taking her from behind. She’d said she didn’t want it. But the tempest inside him was too big now to let her see him, to have his face so close to hers, while he fucked her. He’d been caught up in the moment, too, and he’d have offered her more than he could afford, but she’d ruined that chance. So now, he’d fuck her from behind, the way that was safest for him. She’d told him he could do what he wanted.

  She’d also told him she trusted him.

  “On your hands and knees.”

  Disappointment, and a tinge of apprehension, crossed through her eyes, but she obeyed. Donnie left the condom packet on the corner of the little dresser and knelt on her bed behind her. When he put his hands on her hips, she flinched.

  She was afraid.

  “I won’t hurt you.”

  A nod and a sigh were her response.

  He smoothed his hands over her hips, up the insides of her thighs, up to the bare, pink folds of her pussy. She was dry. The night at the hotel, she’d been so wet for him it had dripped down her legs, but not now.

  She didn’t want it this way, but he couldn’t do it any other. Not now. Now, everything was wrong. He should go, but she wanted him to stay. She was giving him something she didn’t want to give him, so that he would stay. But he wanted something from her he couldn’t have.

  He didn’t want this, either. He wanted her, not this.

  Fuck. He got off the bed.

  “Roll over.”

  She looked over her shoulder. “Huh?”

  “On your back. Roll over.” She obeyed, frowning, and lay in the middle of her bed, her legs straight and her arms crossed over her belly. Like a corpse. “Close your eyes.” She did. “Keep them closed.”

  Stretching out at her side, Donnie propped himself on an elbow. “Let me move you.” He picked up one arm, and then the other, setting them at her sides. Her limbs were soft, without resistance, though her belly quivered with nervous breath. “I won’t hurt you,” he said again.

  “I know.”

  “Shhh.”

  He circled the pert, perfect nipple of one small breast, feeling a weight of guilt fall off when the dark skin tightened alluringly. God, her breasts were so beautiful they made his mouth water. What he would give to taste one, to put his mouth over it and draw it in, to feel her back arch with the pleasure of his kiss.

  That was a fantasy. In reality, she’d shrink back from the feel of him.

  So he focused instead on what he could do for her with his fingers. He plucked each nipple to their tightest knots, pulling just hard enough, just long enough, to find her moan and sustain it, until the quivers in her belly became something better, and her muscles writhed inside a body she was trying to keep still, on his command. Under his control.

  When her mouth dropped open, and her rhythmic moans became soft cries, Donnie eased away from her breast, down over the scoop of her belly, and pushed his hand between her legs. Pushing her thighs apart, he tested her arousal again and this time found what he wanted, a beautiful hot wash over his fingers. “That’s it,” he murmured, and surprised himself to have spoken aloud.

  “Donnie ...” she gasped.

  “Shhh.”

  She whimpered but didn’t try to speak again. He played through her folds, teasing, exploring, going more slowly than before, watching her face, wanting to know every part of her, and how she reacted to every touch of his. She liked rapid flicks of a finger directly on her clit. She liked two fingers inside her, curled so they scraped her upper wall. She liked a slick, circling sweep around her anus, but tensed at any pressure there.

  She hadn’t moved her body except how he’d moved it, and she hadn’t opened her eyes. But she trembled and spasmed and gasped and moaned. Her head thrashed, leaving her hair like Medusa’s, wild and alive on the pillows.

  God, he wanted her. He wanted the fantasy of her. He wanted her love. He fucking wanted it. Goddammit.

  He grabbed the condom and got it on. Then he topped her, pushing her legs open, sliding his arms under hers. With his face hovering inches above hers, he said something he knew would ruin all of this, would show him reality and force him to remember what he could and could not have. With his cock nudging between her legs, swollen and aching and turned all the way on, Donnie girded himself, stared down at Arianna’s uniquely gorgeous face, and said:

  “Open your eyes.”

  He knew what he’d see. The shock of revulsion before she could master it. He was right there; he couldn’t miss it.

  She opened her eyes. And smiled. In the midst of her writhing arousal, with his horrific face the only thing she could see, she smiled. “Thank you,” she said, and those lovely Atlantic eyes softened with unshed tears. No revulsion. No shock. Only pleasure.

  Donnie couldn’t think. Rocked from stem to stern, turned inside out and upside down, he could only feel. Twenty years of mastered emotion, repressed emotion, of relentless self-denial, pushed out and through him in a rush, and his mouth was on hers before he’d known he would do it.

  They both froze at the same time, stunned in unison. Shocked and horrified at himself, Donnie broke and tried to pull away, but Arianna’s hands came up. She held his face in her hands, held him in place, opened her mouth, and made the kiss real. He felt her tongue, oh shit, her tongue on his mouth.

  All their agreements were broken again. All his rules destroyed. He was fucking terrified. This petite woman, this delicate ballerina, was tearing everything he’d made of himself into pieces.

  But oh God, her mouth on his. Her tongue. His mouth didn’t move like hers did, he couldn’t make the same sensual, spectacular contortions, but he could suck, a little, and he could find her tongue with his.

  When his tongue touched hers, she moaned and brought her legs up to wrap his waist. The shift brought his cock firmly against her, and one flex of his hips had him sunk deep.

  “Oh, Donnie!” she gasped against his mouth. “Oh yes, oh yes.”

  His head was a bloodbath of warring emotions, but he was inside her. She was around him. He could feel her, smell her. He could fucking taste her.

  All he could do was chase what he needed. No control, no mastery, no concern for the consequences. He drove into her, fed on her, clamped her as close as he could get her. His guttural, desperate groans filled her mouth, a heavy beat to the sweet chorus of her whimpers and cries that filled his. He was wild, and he didn’t care. The pain in his chest was like his ribs cracking open, and he didn’t care. Her hands were on his face, on his scars, and he wanted them there.

  He fucked her like his life depended on it. And maybe it did.

  How long were they wound together like this, caught in this frenzy of fire and need? He didn’t know and it didn’t matter, but when her body caught its ecstasy and began to spasm and twitch, he felt crazy with the need for it. She tore her mouth from his and cried, “Oh God!”

  With his mouth freed, Donnie breathed fully again, and the unexpected bliss of it rushed through him, supercharged his own orgasm, and sent him over with her.

  He had
n’t realized how impaired his breathing had been with his mouth locked with hers, and for a minute or a few, all he could do was rest his left cheek on her shoulder and breathe. The pain in his chest, the madness in his head—had it been nothing more than lack of air?

  No. It was more.

  But Jesus, he’d given her everything. Twenty years of everything.

  Was she having doubts in the aftermath, too? Was she reliving the feel of his face now, with her physical needs sated, and feeling the disgust he’d expected?

  Fuck. He’d learned these lessons already. Long ago.

  He flexed back, needing distance, but Arianna’s body tightened around him. “Donnie, no. Please don’t go cold again.”

  He wasn’t cold. He was a raw, fevered wound. She’d torn him open.

  “Donnie, please. Please don’t hurt me.”

  The words were barely breath. He rose up and looked down at her. Her eyes traveled over the full terrain of his face. Always she did that, looked at all of him.

  Saw all of him.

  “Don’t you hurt me,” he said.

  Tears flooded her eyes, and she shook her head, a desperate promise. “Kiss me again, Donnie. Kiss me, kiss me.”

  He bent down and put his ruined mouth to her perfect lips.

  God, it felt good.

  ~ 18 ~

  Donnie snored.

  Not obnoxiously, but definitely noticeably. She wasn’t surprised that he snored, or bothered by it; his nose was impaired, so of course he’d snore. But if this became a regular thing, sleeping together—oh please god let it become a regular thing—Ari wondered if he’d be offended if she wore earplugs to sleep.

  It wasn’t only the snoring that had kept her wakeful most of the night. Just having him in her bed, right there beside her, had made her body buzz. And the cycling images of their lovemaking—lovemaking; it was the right word for what had happened between them. And her fear that she’d wake alone and find a frozen statue in his place again.

  But he’d slept at her side, deeply, all night. She’d lain in the curl of his arm and watched him. From this position, on his left, she couldn’t see his scars. Only a hint of difference at the edge of his profile. He looked as he was meant to look, and he was really handsome. A strong Roman nose, a firm chin and square jaw. A serious brow. Though he kept his dark hair fairly short, it looked due for a trim and was long enough that a bit of wave was evident. The grey at his temple glittered.

  And oh, his body. Lean and perfect. Not heavily muscled, but visibly strong. Not overly groomed, but naturally masculine. His skin was a bronzy olive tone that suggested his Italian heritage was southern, like her father’s—though she herself had the paler tone of her mother, whose people were from Milan. His body bore scars, too—three heavy lines over his right shoulder that seemed to be burn scars, and a few smaller, jagged creases that suggested other kinds of violence.

  She was powerfully, elementally attracted to this man.

  She didn’t care about his scars for herself. She was surrounded by handsome men with beautiful bodies every day of her life, and she had acquired ample evidence that beauty without had nothing to do with beauty within. There was a beautiful man inside the scarred shell of Donato Goretti.

  She hated his scars for the way they mattered to him, for the way they mattered to other people, for the way they closed off the man she could see in his eyes. Whoever had burned him had tortured him for far longer than the time they’d held him down. They’d tortured him for twenty years, and counting. They’d made the world see him as a monster, and he’d turned that lens on himself and seen the same, blinding him to his true worth.

  A small voice in Ari’s head piped up and asked if maybe she was romanticizing the damaged man—a man she knew was a killer, a man whose presence in her life required her to have armed guards, a man who’d hurt her more than once, and as recently as the night before, a man who’d told her in so many words that he was emotionally locked down. Had she bought into the clichés she’d so often mocked? Was she trying to save the unsalvageable?

  That voice had been voluble in the months since her debut as Christine, since the morning after her first night with Donnie, when he’d turned something beautiful into something humiliating. She’d tried to listen, tried to move on. But when he’d showed back up, all she wanted was to reach him.

  Last night, she had. He’d let her touch him, let her know him. He’d kissed her. Oh God, how wonderful it had been. Yes, it felt different, but it always felt different, kissing someone new. Beard or no beard, thick lips or thin, teeth, tongue, taste, scent—every person was a new and different kissing experience, and Donnie wasn’t unusual in that regard. His mouth was a little less mobile than normal, but the result was a soft, slow, intense touch. The graft skin on the right side was a bit firmer than his natural lips, but there’d been nothing remotely unpleasant in the feel.

  And oh God, the sheer power of the act. The blazing hot fire of it. He’d kissed her. He’d wanted it, and he’d trusted her. Twenty years of refusing himself, guarding himself, and he’d given it to her. She’d found the beautiful man inside the damaged armor. He’d opened himself and shown her, and he’d been on fire.

  Maybe she had a romantic personality after all. Because in that moment, she’d fallen in love. If he woke and was ice again, if he regretted what they’d shared and tried to take it back, this time it wouldn’t be simple humiliation and disappointment she’d feel.

  This time, he’d break her heart.

  Sighing, she set her hand on his chest, felt the warm skin, the soft hair, the beat of his heart.

  He jolted awake and came up on his elbow. Ari held her breath and didn’t move. Which man was in bed with her this morning? Fire or ice?

  He cast a look around her room; she watched him wake fully and understand. He turned his head and met her eyes. Sinking into the cobalt depths of his, she tried to grab on to the man she’d known last night. Please, please, don’t close off. Please, please.

  “Arianna.”

  “Good morning.” Please, please, please.

  “Did I keep you up? I know I snore. I should have said something.”

  “You do, but I didn’t mind. It doesn’t matter.”

  He frowned, and she thought over her answer, wondering why it was wrong. Should she have lied and said he hadn’t? Well, she couldn’t just sit here, naked beside him, and wait for him to break her heart at his leisure.

  “Donnie, are we together? Are we in a relationship?”

  His frown deepened, and Ari felt cracks forming over the surface of her heart. But then he said, “You want that? You want that with me? Don’t lie to me, Arianna.”

  He made that threat-laced demand repeatedly, and without cause. She’d never lied to him. Not even about his snoring. “I don’t know how to be more clear. I want to be with you. I want you. You’re what I want.” He wouldn’t believe her if she told him she’d fallen for him already, so she held that back. “What do you want?”

  “There are very good reasons I don’t do relationships,” he said, his eyes dropping from hers. The cracks deepened and threatened to split apart. But then he looked at her again. “I don’t know why you’re different, but you are.”

  “What you want, Donnie?” Her voice nearly failed her.

  He cupped a hand over her cheek. “You. Stella mia.”

  He’d called her that once before, in the hotel, on the night of her debut as the star of a ballet. Stella mia: my star. Her heart had thrown a lasso around those two small words and hung on, but he’d never said them again. Until right now.

  Ari put her hand up and cupped Donnie’s scarred cheek. He flinched, but didn’t pull away. He let her touch him. “Kiss me, Donnie.”

  “You don’t mind?”

  “Your kiss is everything.”

  His eyes left hers, skimmed down her face, and landed on her lips. Then he leaned in and kissed her. It was everything, just everything. Soft and fierce both. Needful.

  A
ri’s heart healed and swelled. She threw her arms around him and moaned with riotous pleasure. In response, Donnie grunted and turned, rolling over her, sweeping his hand from her face, down her neck, over her shoulder and down, capturing a breast in his palm.

  He tore his mouth from hers. “I have to taste.”

  Before Ari could protest the loss of him, his head dipped down, and he sucked her nipple into his mouth, moaning like a starved man tasting his first meal in weeks.

  No—years.

  “Oh fuck, Donnie!” She hadn’t dared fantasize about this, but his kiss there was marvelous—soft again, fluttering, over and over until she thrummed and writhed. His teeth caught the tip and pulled, and Ari clutched him closer, never wanted him to stop.

  “You taste sweet,” he mumbled against her chest and moved to her other breast, offering it the same delights. “Like honey.”

  Ari held him close and thrust her hips, rocking her core on his leg, dragging her body along the forged iron beam of his cock.

  He sent his hand traveling onward, and it slid between her thighs. “Ah, you’re wet for me.”

  “Fuck me,” she gasped.

  He lifted his head and smiled down at her. “Kiss me, fuck me—you’re demanding this morning.”

  Actual reasonable words were beyond her, so she simple lifted her hips higher, made herself an offering.

  He laughed. Oh, she liked this Donnie, this open, unguarded man who didn’t fear his feelings. She loved this man.

  He reached to the dresser and pulled his pile of clothes toward the bed. With that one hand, he opened his wallet and extracted a condom—the last one, she saw.

  She took the packet from him. “Let me.”

  “Demanding.” But he let go.

  Tearing the packet open with her teeth, she removed the lubed circle and brought it to the tip of his cock. First, she played her fingers over the firm velvet of his tip, caught its single needy drip on her finger and brought it to her mouth. He watched her taste him, and sighed out a hungry grunt. Rolling the condom over his girth, she felt the alluring tension in his body, in his shaking arms. He wanted her, was desperate for her.